Woman Is Furious That American Airlines Left Her Sitting Next To A Masturbating Passenger

By: Mackenzie Wright | July 17, 2017

While one woman slept on a plane, she had no idea that the man next to her was masturbating. The crew knew, however; the flight attendants got a complaint from the woman on the other side of the man. She requested a seat change, and they re-seated her. When the sleeping woman woke up, she was told about the incident, and is furious that the flight attendants made her remain next to the man until the plane landed.

Chloe King says she was furious when she woke up from a long sleep through the whole flight from Massachusetts to Paris. The flight attendant pulled her to the back of the cabin and told her that the man next to her had been pleasuring himself. Another woman seated on the man's other side had complained and been asked to move, but no one woke up King to alert her of what was going on.

“What they didn’t do was wake me up and move me to a safe place. What they didn’t do was accommodate my request — after informing me of the assault — to sit anywhere else on the plane for landing,” King wrote in an emotional essay for Medium.com.

You would think, at that point, that King would have been moved from her seat. Unfortunately, the flight attendant, after informing her the guy next to her was being sexually deviant, told her she had to go back to her seat. King says she pleaded with them, but they eventually forced her to climb over the man and go back to where she started.

“They made me climb back over the sex offender, trapped between him and the window for the rest of the flight. I was shaking and crying and trying not to get sick,” she wrote. “I’ll never know what exactly happened on that flight, but I do know I’ll never feel completely safe flying again. Add an American Airlines airplane to the long list of places where, as a woman, I will feel anxious and vulnerable,” she said.

Police were called and the perverted passenger was arrested, but King isn't happy with the way the situation was handled. She tried complaining to the airline, but she says she got ‘blank stares’ from the people at the customer service desk.

King filed a complaint with the airline, but says all she got back was a ‘generic’ form letter apologizing for the ‘disappointing’ flight.

King claims the airline treated the man with more respect and consideration than they treated her. She says they "did nothing to stop the man’s actions or protect my safety in a horrifying situation."

“American always strives to maintain a safe and comfortable travel experience for all of our customers. We are reviewing how we handled the situation on this flight, and have reached out directly to Ms. King. During the flight, our crew requested that French law enforcement meet the aircraft in Paris,” the airline said in a statement, noting that they're investigating the situation.